Edgewater Towers
Edgewater Towers is a high-rise apartment building in the suburb of St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia. Completed in 1961, it was Melbourne's first high-rise residential apartment block, and the tallest in Victoria until the completion of Domain Park Flats in 1962. The building was designed by architect Mordechai Benshemesh, who designed numerous multi-storey buildings in St Kilda and Elwood. Edgewater Towers is regarded as one of Benshemesh's most notable works. The building is tall to the architectural top, to the roof, and comprises 13 storeys.
History
Edgewater Towers was the first multi-story residential high-rise project in Melbourne, developed by Bruce Small. Small, known for his leadership of Malvern Star Bicycle and his subsequent tenure as mayor of the Gold Coast, conceived the project following his retirement as chairman and managing director of Bruce Small Industries in 1958.Marketed as "sophisticated living with beautiful views", the project included the "own your own" luxury housing model to the region. Designed between 1959 and 1960, construction began in 1960. However, the project encountered financial instability, causing work to cease after the completion of the lower floors. The development was subsequently sold for £A500,000, allowing construction to resume. Original plans for a rooftop restaurant and lounge bar were ultimately abandoned.
The building was officially opened on 4 March 1961 by Horace Petty, the Victorian Minister for Housing and Immigration, who was a prominent proponent of high-density urban development.
Edgewater Towers is included in the City of Port Phillip's Heritage Review, which identifies the building as the "first of St Kilda's residential high rise developments". The review highlights its enduring symbolic role in the character of St Kilda, noting that the structure resembles a "towering section of a stranded ocean liner" that defines the "nautical cosmopolitan zone" of the area's southern approach.
Standing 13 stories high with views across Port Phillip Bay, the building is regarded as a significant example of post-war modernism. While it experienced a period of neglect, it has since been recognized as an iconic representation of Melbourne's mid-century architectural progress.
Fire life safety
Evolving fire safety regulations for high-rise residential buildings led the Port Phillip Council to utilize Edgewater Towers as a test case for compliance in the late 1980s.Consequently, the building underwent a series of comprehensive safety improvements between 1989 and 1995 to achieve a one-hour fire-resistance rating. These modifications included the installation of fire hose reels, smoke and heat detection systems, and emergency exit lighting. Structural changes during this period included the enclosure of the previously open western stairwell, the sealing of floor penetrations, and the closure of the internal mail chute. To improve containment and egress, glazed timber corridor doors were removed, fire-rated doors were installed, and corridor clerestory glazing was blocked. Additionally, both stairwells were modified to discharge directly to the building's exterior.
In 2002, the Port Phillip Council mandated further upgrades. Between 2005 and 2008, a fire sprinkler protection system and a fully addressable automatic fire detection and alarm system were installed. The efficacy of these systems was demonstrated in August 2013, when the sprinkler system successfully activated to contain a fire on an 11th-floor balcony, an event reported by The Age. The safety project was officially certified as complete in 2014, and an Essential Safety Measures Certificate of Final Inspection is currently displayed in the building's lobby.
Concrete remediation
As an early high-rise concrete structure situated in a marine environment, Edgewater Towers has been subject to ongoing concrete degradation. This issue primarily affected the balcony upstands, where the steel reinforcement bars lacked sufficient concrete cover to prevent corrosion. While these issues did not compromise the structural integrity of the building, the resulting concrete spalling significantly disfigured the façade.The building underwent extensive concrete remediation and repainting in 1995. A more recent restoration project was completed in 2011 by Aurecon, followed by a full repainting of the exterior. Although the original sales brochure depicted the building in a different color scheme, Edgewater Towers has historically been maintained with a white finish.
Building interiors
Originally, the 1.8-meter-wide corridors featured glazed timber doors that separated the two-bedroom flats from the one-bedroom units. Most of these doors were removed during fire safety upgrades, though the original 12AB penthouse apartment retains them. The corridors were initially characterized by a vibrant 1960s color palette, featuring bright reds, oranges, and yellows, while the lobby was painted bright green. The corridor ends were decorated with patterned wallpaper, and the floors were covered in a black-and-white carpet with purple accents. These bold colors were eventually repainted in neutral tones after early residents expressed a preference for a more subdued aesthetic.The corridors were designed to utilize "borrowed daylight" through clerestory windows situated in each flat. For nighttime illumination, fluorescent tube fittings were installed at right angles to the corridor—an unconventional arrangement that was maintained in 2013 when the system was updated with energy-efficient LED fittings. Additionally, each flat originally featured a decorative wrought-iron scroll screen door; these were replaced with modern security doors during the 1990s fire safety upgrades.
In its original configuration, Edgewater Towers provided two communal laundries on each floor, totaling 24 facilities. Each was equipped with an automatic washing machine, clothes dryer, sink, drying cupboard, instantaneous hot water heater, and an incinerator chute. Currently, six of these laundries remain operational, while the remaining 18 have been converted into storage for approximately 55 bicycles. Of the two original incinerator chutes, one remains in service as a garbage disposal system. The building's interior underwent a comprehensive renovation between 2010 and 2014.
Flats
The residential units at Edgewater Towers follow a standardized floor plan designated by letters A through H. A, B, G, and H are two-bedroom configurations featuring two balconies, encompassing approximately. Flats C and F are one-bedroom units with three balconies, while flats D and E are one-bedroom units with two balconies. The 12AB Penthouse was originally designed as a combination of two two-bedroom units, resulting in a three-bedroom layout with two bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining area, a living room, and a wet bar.At the time of its opening, sale prices for a one-bedroom ground-floor flat began at £A5,625, equivalent to in, while a two-bedroom flat on the twelfth floor cost up to £A8,830, equivalent to in. The original quarterly service charge was £A19/10/-, equivalent to in. Despite the luxury branding, it took over two years to complete the sale of all units.
The apartments were marketed as "soundproof" and featured high-speed automatic express lifts. Original promotional materials highlighted "king-size lounge rooms," "large bedrooms," and kitchens designed to maximize panoramic views.
While the architect's original ground-floor plans specified parquetry for the lounge and cork tiles for the bedrooms, these materials were never installed; instead, all units were originally fitted with grey carpet.
The units feature a floor-to-ceiling height of 2.55 meters, with ceilings treated with sound-deadening Vermiculite for acoustic insulation. Internal doorways and bathrooms incorporate clerestory glazing to utilize borrowed daylight. The original interior finishes included grey or grey-and-pink ceramic bathroom tiles and cream vinyl tiling in the kitchens.
Description
The L-shaped site area is with frontage to Marine Parade and to Spenser Street. Overall building dimensions of high.The building originally contained 100 flats with shops, a restaurant and offices on the ground floor. Each floor contained four one bedroom and four two bedroom flats. The ground floor restaurant "The Reef" and later a milk bar with counter and café seating, until the early 80s was converted to a three bedroom flat in the mid-1980s. A Kiosk planned for the lobby was never operated as one and was converted for bike storage in the mid-1990s. The lobby is elevated to capture the bay and park views and features cantilevered roof canopies above both entrances, clerestory windows above a curved wall of Castlemaine slate, terrazzo flooring and columns of blue and pink mosaic glass tiles.
Copper mail boxes are original. Many original features of the building such as the curved privacy screen before the two public restroom doors, resident directory board, rockery planter with green plastic curtain/screen, open West stairwell, corridor clerestory glazing for borrowed daylight and mail chute were removed or closed off during fire life safety upgrades. The original very heavy swinging glass and timber entrance doors were replaced with aluminium framed glazing and automatic sliding doors in 2014.
The original architect's ground floor plan drawing notes entrance doors as 'Aluminium Frame' though they were never installed. When opened Edgewater Towers was fitted with two waste incinerators as there was no managed garbage truck collection in place at the time. The incinerators were removed in a fire life safety upgrade and are now stairwell fire exit paths direct to outside.
Facing Marine Parade, the building originally had a large illuminated fluorescent white plastic sign "Edgewater Towers" in red gothic script until it was brought down by a storm in 1988. The original rooftop lift motor rooms were fitted with louvres and these were replaced with steel framed glazing in 1986. There is parking on grade for 95 cars at the east end of the building including 12 undercover car ports; the maximum covered area allowed to maintain the required minimum of open space per flat. The original plans for the building were lost when fire gutted the St Kilda Town Hall and partial plans are stored in the State Library of Victoria.